Sarajevo Film Festival is honored to announce a new development award - Female Voices CineLink Award (€10,000 in cash) presented by Film Center Slovenia. The CineLink will present nine feature fiction and seven drama series projects in the development phase from Southeast Europe.
The Female Voices CineLink Award is granted to one project in the development participating in CineLink Co-Production or Drama strands with an aim to support and promote female voices in the Southeast European film industry. A director of the Slovenian Film Center, Nataša Bučar shared a motivation behind the award:
The aim of the Female Voices CineLink Award is to encourage the creation of new stories revealing women’s previously unstated outlooks on the past and fresh approaches to the stories from the present. Everything has already been shown before. However, the strength of every new film story and film character lies in novel approaches and original perspectives. In recent years, women authors have been enriching the global audiovisual industry more than ever, and we also wish to promote the feminine worldview in our regional audiovisual works.
In order to cater the specific needs of each project and to prepare them for the market exposure, this year, CineLink Industry Days has developed a range of activities, starting with CineLink Workshop in June, one-on-one meetings during the Festival (August 15 –18), that will continue with online meetings in September. CineLink Team strives to improve the production value by matchmaking the projects with various decision makers in the fileds of production, financing, distribution and sales, as well as offers to aid in script development through extensive sessions. Moreover, the CineLink Co-Production Market offers following cash awards: Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (€20,000), Film Center Montenegro CineLink Award (€ 10,000), Film Center Serbia CineLink Award (€ 10,000) and ARTEKino International Prize (€ 6,000), while the CineLink Drama offers two awards: Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award (€15,000) and TV Drama Vision Pitch Award - one project selected to be presented at TV Drama Vision in Göteborg.
CineLink Co-production Market 2022 Selection:
ALL THEY KNOW ABOUT LOVE
Director: Melik Kuru
Writer: Melik Kuru
Producer: Irem Akbal
Production Company: Bal Film
Country: Turkey
A well-educated, emotionally underdeveloped translator enjoys the borderline relationship he has with his mother. Starting at a tutoring job in a francophone institution, one of his young students will be strongest obstacle and most reliable guide on this journey.
THE BOY WITH THE LIGHT-BLUE EYES
Director: Thanasis Neofotistos
Writers: Thanasis Neofotistos, Grigoris Skarakis
Producer: Ioanna Bolomyti
Production Company: Argonauts Productions S.A.
Country: Greece
On the Greek folk mountains, there is a remote superstitious village. PETER, a different teenager, lives there with his strict grandmother & his overprotective mother. Through a series of events, lies revealed, curses are unveiled and Peter will sacrifice his light-blue eyes in order to be free.
HEAR THE YELLOW
Director: Banu Sivaci
Writer: Banu Sivaci
Producer: Zeynep Koray
Production Company: ZKF
Co-production Company: La Fabrica Nocturna
Country: Turkey
Successful opera diva SUNA, who refuses male dominance at an early age, escapes from the village she was born. Decades later, she goes back and witnesses possible scenarios of her life, if she stayed.
MUM
Director: Nikola Ležaić
Writer: Nikola Ležaić
Producers: Nikola Ležaić, Siniša Juričić
Production Company: Qče
Co-production Company: Nukleus Film
Country: Serbia, Croatia
NIKOLA travels with his father to return the remains of his grandmother back to her home village in Croatia. He learns a lesson about parenthood, family, and memories that are sometimes not real.
PATRIMONIAL FEARS AND OTHER SYMPTOMS
Director: Elina Psykou
Writer: Elina Psykou
Producers: Maria Drandaki, Konstantinos Vassilaros
Production Company: Homemade Films, StudioBauhaus
Co-production Companies: Red Carpet Films
Country: Greece, Bulgaria
DINOS is the father of LAKIS and Lakis is the father of KONSTANTINOS. All three of them are chubby and scared. Will their fears disappear when David Copperfield makes the Acropolis disappear?
PETTY THIEVES
Director: Mate Ugrin
Writer: Mate Ugrin
Producers: Daria Blažević, Mate Ugrin, Karsten Krause, Frank Scheuffele, Julia Cöllen, Tiphaine Robion
Production Company: Fünferfilm (Germany)
Co-production Companies: Kadromat (Croatia), In The Cut (France)
Young loner RIO gets by with seasonal jobs and petty thefts in resorts on the Adriatic coast. His carefree everyday life is thrown off balance by ANDREA, a seasonal worker from Serbia who becomes his partner in crime. During the course of the summer, they will spend a short but intense time together, that they will never forget.
SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS
Director: Dina Duma
Writers: Dina Duma, Lidija Mojsovska
Producer: Labina Mitevska
Production Companies: Sisters and Brother Mitevski, Entre chien et Loup
Country: North Macedonia, Belgium
When a conservative tradition of bridal sale becomes a solution for a financial family problem, ADELA dives into a completely new world where she gets caught between traditional and modern values.
WE ALL DIE NAKED
Directors: Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci
Writers: Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci
Producer: Enea Gramo
Production Company: Art Film sh.p.k
Country: Albania
A recovering Albanian alcoholic and a drunken, dying Italian drive across the Balkans searching for the perfect place to die.
YUGOSLAVA
Director: Ivan Bakrač
Writer: Ivan Bakrač
Producers: Ivan Bakrač, Nikolina Vučetić – Zečević, Guillaume de Seille
Production Company: Quadrifolium Films (Montenegro)
Co-production Companies: Biberche Productions (Serbia), Arizona Films (France)
On her 55th birthday, in order to overcome complete loneliness, YUGOSLAVA uses a vacation in searching for a new apartment. However, that quest will change her life in different way than she imagined.
CineLink Drama 2022:
BROTHERS
Creator: Simon Farmakas
Writer: Simon Farmakas
Producers: Alexandra Hoesdorff, Désirée Nosbusch, Fenia Cossovitsa,
Production Company: Deal Productions
Co-production Company: BLONDE s.a.
Country: Greece, Cyprus, Luxembourg
When the son of a German politician is found dead inside no man’s land dividing Nicosia, opposing detectives, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot are forced to work together to investigate the crime.
BY LAW
Creator: Hari Šečić
Writer: Hari Šečić
Producer: Hari Šečić
Production Company: Association Spektar
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
By Law is a police drama series set in modern-day Bosnia. It tells the story of young detective who is solving crimes, realizing that the main problem of the society is corrupted system that he fights.
GLORIA
Creator: Balázs Zachar, Marcsi Tóth
Director: Fanni Szilágyi
Producer: Balázs Zachar
Production Company: Proton Cinema
Country: Hungary
A young nun has to start a new life in the secular world and faces the awakening woman in herself.
HELA AFTER ALL
Creators: Saša Podgorelec
Writers: Jelena Paljan, Antonio Gabelić
Producers: Aleksandar Janković, Vojislava Janković
Production Company: United media production
Country: Serbia, Croatia
As Croatia's football team paves its way towards the 2018 World Cup finals, the police investigation of the powerful priest's intriguing death devastates the young girl's life.
NIGHTTIME
Creators: Nikola Ljuca, Milan Marić
Writer: Staša Bajac, Nikola Ljuca
Producer: Milan Marić
Production Company: Mechanism
Country: Serbia
Horror is other people.
RUMPUS
Creator: Dubravka Turić, Danijel Žeželj
Writer: Dubravka Turić
Producer: Ankica Jurić Tilić
Production Company: Kinorama
Country: Croatia
Investigating the murder of a teenager, the female detective discovers the dark secret of a small industrial town and sinks into the swamp of the evil spirit Rumpus.
THE TURKISH AMBASSADOR
Creator: Darko Lungulov
Producer: Darko Lungulov
Production Company: Papa Films
Country: Serbia
A brave Yugoslav man gets killed while trying to stop the assassins of the Turkish ambassador. A controversial Yugoslav lawyer defends assassins blaming the police for accidentally killing the man.
